Now, Lenovo is finally joining Dell as one of the first top-tier PC vendors to offer pre-installed Linux desktops to its customers. On Aug-07-2007, Lenovo and Novell announced an agreement to provide preloaded Linux on Lenovo ThinkPad notebook PCs and to provide support from Lenovo for the operating system. The companies will offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 from Novell to commercial customers on Lenovo notebooks including those in the popular ThinkPad T Series, a class of notebooks aimed at typical business users, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2007. The ThinkPad notebooks with the Linux-preload will also be available for purchase by individual customers.

PC vendor Lenovo has promised ThinkPads with pre-installed Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 for some time now. Lenovo will deliver the goods the week of Jan. 14.